Category Archives: Emerging Threats

SQL Injection Worms Infecting New Sites

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Attacks continue in the wild against ASP pages with SQL injection flaws. It appears that the worm is injection scripts and iframes into the webpages which then forwards users to another page with an exploit embedded. The exploits are believed to be based on recent Real Player vulnerabilities. take over visitors to the websites. It looks like the infection of user machines is by Real Player vulnerabilities that seem more or less detected pretty well. It’d be a good idea to make sure everyone has Real Player updated if it is installed as a precaution for users that may visit any infected site.

Windows XP Service Pack 3

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Windows XP Service Pack 3 has been released. This long awaited update to Windows XP offers some enhanced security features borrowed from Windows Vista and a few other things. Rolling out this service pack will also install all of the Windows updates released since service pack 2. Some of the enhancements in SP3 includes black hole router detection, network access protection, enhanced security for administrator and service policy entries, and a kernel mode cryptographic module.

Akamai Download Manager Vulnerability

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Akamai Download Manager installs an ActiveX control if a user uses the ActiveX download manager. The ActiveX control will remain installed on the users computer until manually removed. A program execution vulnerabillity has been identified within this ActiveX control. This problem is due to two undocumented object parameters. By using these parameters in a malicous website, it is possible to cause the Download Manager to automatically download and execute arbitrary applications from malicious hosts.

Akamai has released a new version of the download manager to correct this issue. MicroSolved recommends updating to the newest version if you have ever used the Download Manager. It is also possible to manually remove the ActiveX control, or set the kill-bits for this control to disable it.

Lotus Expeditor Client Vulnerability

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A vulnerability in IBM Lotus Expeditor has been identified, which could be exploited to compromise a user’s system. The issue is that the application registers the “cai” URI handler, which allows launching rcplauncher.exe with arbitrary command line arguments. This can be exploited to execute arbitrary by having a user click on a malicous url link. It’s reported that Lotus Expeditor Client for Desktop versions 6.1.0, 6.1.2, and 6.1.2 are vulnerable. Contact IBM Support to request a patch to mitigate this issue.

WordPress Code Execution Vulnerability

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Two new vulnerabilities have been identified in WordPress 2.5. The vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to conduct xss attacks, bypass some security restrictions, compromise the vulnerable system. The first vuln could allow an attacker to bypass the authentication mechanism by creating a cookie with certain settings.

The second vulnerability is caused by passing input to an unspecified parameter which is not properly sanitised by the server. This vulnerability can be exploited to execute arbitrary script code in a user’s browser session.

All users should update to the latest version of WordPress, version 2.5.1.

Perl 5.8.8 Vulnerability – Trillian 3.1 Long Nick

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A double free vulnerability exists in perl 5.8.8. A result of a UTF8 crafted regular expression, this vulnerability could cause a denial of service on certain operating systems. This has not been fixed as of the time of this writing.

A curious vulnerability has been announced for Trillian 3.1 where a specially formed nickname can cause a buffer overflow in Windows. Very few details are available at this time, and an exploit hasn’t been released, but I wouldn’t expect it to be long before we see a real PoC.

VoIPER – A VoIP Fuzzing Tool

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VoIPER, a VoIP fuzzing framework, has been released. This tool includes a suite built on the Sulley fuzzing framework and a SIP torturer. The fuzzer currently incorporates tests for SIP INVITE, SIP ACK, SIP CANCEL, SIP request structure, and SPD over SIP. VoIPER, and tools like it, are likely to increase the likely hood that additional SIP vulnerabilities will be found. Proper architecture and configuration surrounding a SIP implementation is likely to reduce the potential for compromise in almost all scenarios.

High Profile XSS

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A security issue in Barack Obama’s website has been exploited by a user to redirect users to Hillary Clinton’s website. Visitors of the community blogs section of his website were sent to Hillary Clintons home page via a Cross Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability. This story highlights the importance of secure coding practices, as well as finding and remediating any XSS that are found on your site. Had the intentions of the user posting the XSS been malicious, he could have infected all of the visitors with malware/spyware. Moral of the story, XSS is not a vulnerability that should be taken lightly.

OpenOffice Overflow

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Several OpenOffice vulnerabilities have been released over the weekend. In total, four advisories have been released detailing various types of overflows in the software. These could be exploited in various ways, all resulting in complete system compromise. Version 2.3 and below are vulnerable, and OpenOffice has released version 2.4, which addresses these vulnerabilities.